It took seven years, more than a million dollars and countless hours of work, but on Tuesday the dream of a new city animal shelter came to pass as Mayor Mark Lauretti cut the ceremonial ribbon on the Brewster Street facility.
“To have stayed within the budget and get the product that they got is a credit to them,” Lauretti said of the Animal Shelter Building Committee, which started working on the project in 2007, “and it speaks volumes to our city and the people who reside here.”
The new shelter, which was built on a piece of city-owned property at the corner of Riverdale Avenue and Brewster Street, will replace the old shelter just down the road on Riverdale Avenue, which will close once the animals are moved to the new shelter.
Shelton residents approved spending $1.4 million on the new shelter in a 2012 referendum. The project came in on budget, Lauretti said. Bismark Construction was the contractor on the job and the city’s Public Works Department contributed to the land preparation.
“I want to say thank you to all the committee members for hanging in there and doing a job well done,” he said. “This facility is certainly above and beyond what was in the past but will serve our community for many, many years to come.”
“For the past eight years, the committee has devoted a tremendous amount of time and energy to the task given us, and we are quite proud of the result,” Committee Chairman Gerry Craig said. “We feel we have achieved our goals in an efficient and cost effective manner while keeping with the shelter trends of the future.
“We are extremely proud of the fact that when the State Department of Agriculture approved the design and inspected the building, it did so with rave reviews,” he said.
The state inspectors were so impressed with the facility that they are recommending it as a model for other communities to follow, Lauretti said.
The new shelter is about 6,000 square feet and had 26 dog runs, an additional four for quarantined dogs and 14 cat cages. The addition of space for cats is new for the city, which has never had the facilities to accommodate cats.
There also are eight outside dog runs along each side of the building to allow the dogs to get out of their cages and go outside.
The current shelter holds 20 dogs and is constantly at capacity, Lauretti said, so the new shelter will accommodate more dogs and give them more space.
The Shelton Police Department, which oversees the animal control facility, has agreed to allow volunteers from the Friends of the Shelton Animal Shelter to assist at the new shelter, Lauretti said. There also will be additional paid staff, including an adoption coordinator and two part-time animal control officers.
“One problem is that we have always been short of staff,” Lauretti said.
In addition to Craig, members of the Animal Shelter Building Committee include Steve Martino, vice chair, AJ Grasso, Linda Hooper, Irene McCoy, Roberta Reynolds, Tony Minopoli and Gail Craig, who was the recording secretary.
